6. There’s an urban legend that the cake got its start at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.

The legend goes that a chef at the Waldorf Astoria created the recipe for red velvet cake and it became a popular dessert at the hotel. The recipe leaked, however, when a customer wrote to the chef, asking for the recipe, and the chef sent it back to her with a $350 bill for it. Allegedly, the patron was so outraged by the bill that she forwarded the recipe in the form of a chain letter to her nearest and dearest socialite friends.

7. But in fact, we’re all victims of a marketing ploy.

The cake was invented during the Great Depression when everyone was hurting, including the folks at the food coloring company Adams Extract. To try and lure customers back to their product, the company created the Adams Red Velvet Cake recipe.

8. The original tagline for the cake was this: “The cake of a wife time.”